Thicker than Water
by zedille
Summary: Five hundred years ago, Turnball Root shows his true colors, Raine Vinyáya enters the LEP, and Nan Burdeh founds Section Eight. But first, a police officer met a smuggler.
_It takes a whole village to get me to publish anything. Thanks to E., E., E., B., A., M., & M. for letting me bounce ideas off you and reading drafts. I've been thinking about this story in some shape or form for several years now, and I am massively excited to finally be writing it! I hope you enjoy._

 _Author's notes/DVD commentary coming soon._ — _April 2 2016_

* * *

 _Haven City, 1519_

Every junior LEP officer put in a stint on patrol duty in the Market District. It was the center of Haven's criminal world, and everyone knew it. The permanent LEP cabin, staffed round the clock, served more as a token gesture than an actual effort to suppress criminal activity there.

Despite that, Corporal Julius Root was determined to take his job as seriously as he could. It was the principle of the matter: he had sworn an oath to serve the People, and the People were not served by crime, be it theft, vandalism, or other forms of disorderly conduct. The fact that a good record here might impress Commander Larch and move him up the queue for Recon initiations (and keep him from rotating back onto the Traffic roster, please Frond) was entirely beside the point.

Root's shift partner had pulled rank and claimed the right to go patrol the streets; Root was stuck inside the poorly ventilated LEP cabin monitoring the cameras mounted around the district. He sat at the console and flicked through the feeds unenthusiastically. A van had broken down on a side boulevard; there was probably some contraband getting smuggled in there. On the next feed, two fairies were huddled together talking. The cameras provided visuals only, and they were deliberately angled away from the lens to prevent lip-reading, so he couldn't catch any of what they were saying. Root shrugged and flicked through to the next feed. A gnome stumbled out of a bar and vomited in the street. A pixie moved to support him – and yes, the camera caught the pixie's hand sneaking into the gnome's pocket and relieving him of his gold.

The broken-down van was now surrounded by a group of goblins. Root was surprised by how many they were. How had they all fit inside what was only a rather small van? No doubt they were too stupid to realize that vehicles had occupancy limits for a reason. He was tempted to linger, as the idea of goblins trying to repair a van promised to be entertaining, but duty made him move onward through the rest of the feeds.

The two people on a street corner were shaking hands and parting ways. No doubt they'd finished their clandestine business. Had something changed hands? The gnome was now sitting vacantly on the street, staring blankly into space. Root made a note of his location: if he didn't move along himself soon enough, they might have to send someone to pick him up and book him for disorderly conduct.

Back to the van. The goblins appeared to have taken a break from van repairs and were now arguing with someone – a female elf, about Root's own age. She seemed unfazed by the fact that the goblins clearly outnumbered her. Not for the first time, Root wished the cameras provided audio: from what he could see of the scene, she was holding her own. Not that this was particularly difficult with goblins.

Back to the other cameras. Empty street corners. The gnome was snoring now, a trickle of pixelated drool sliding out of his mouth. Delightful. Root returned to the goblins with a sigh of relief: that elf was much easier on the eyes than the inebriated gnome, despite the company she was keeping.

He punched up the feed again, and frowned. The goblins had backed her up against the van and surrounded her, and their body language indicated that they were on the verge of summoning fireballs. LEP enforcement policy in the Market District was much laxer than in the rest of the city, but Root wasn't about to stand by and watch a physical assault happen when he could do something about it. Burns from goblin fireballs were on an entirely different level from a spot of pickpocketing or disorderly behavior in public.

He checked the coordinates of the camera as he grabbed his helmet and buzz baton and the spare patrol kit, and dashed out from the LEP cabin. The van had stalled several blocks away; Root only hoped that he wouldn't arrive too late. He readied his buzz baton with one hand as he ran down the street, and used the other to call his shift partner.

"Lieutenant Newt? This is Corporal Root. I left the cabin to check out a disturbance on the corner of Crane and Linden. Meet me there as soon as you can. There's a pack of goblins on the loose."

He didn't stop for Newt's answer, and sprinted the last two blocks to the van's location. The goblins had indeed summoned fireballs; Root swore under his breath. Buzz batons were a close-contact method of crowd control. He was too far away to do anything –

The woman narrowed her eyes at the goblins leaning around her, and jerked a leg up sharply. It landed with devastating effect squarely between the legs of the closest goblin, who doubled over, his fireball abruptly extinguished. She took advantage of the brief opening to grab – was that a fire extinguisher? – from the van behind her. The first pass of the flame-retardant foam from the extinguisher put out most of the goblins' fireballs. Judicious application of the heavy butt end of the extinguisher to goblin heads finished the task. He had to admire her technique: despite the fact that fire extinguishers contained compressed aerosols, the canisters were surprisingly heavy.

As he approached, Root took a moment to contemplate the unlikely fact that the goblins had apparently been carrying a fire extinguisher in their van. It was unusually sensible of them, considering the frequency with which arguments between goblins deteriorated into firefights, in the literal sense of the word.

"Are you all right, miss?" he said. He straightened his uniform knickerbockers and silently cursed how out-of-breath he was.

She spun and met his gaze, startled. She was of average height, lean, with sallow skin and pale red hair braided tidily around her head. The LEP cameras had not captured the particular quality of her eyes and their distinctive feline pupils.

After a moment, she lowered the fire extinguisher and relaxed, blinking. "Thank goodness you're here, officer!" she said. She was smiling now, and the transformation really was extraordinary. Root almost forgot they were standing in Haven's seediest district.

 _Focus_. He swallowed, wiped the palms of his hands on his uniform, and smiled back. "Miss, did they hurt you?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine," she said, before going on effusively, "I was so scared!"

If she had been scared, she had done a very good job of hiding it. Root cleared his throat. "A nasty business, these goblins," he said, and turned over one of the goblins with his foot. "I think I recognize this bunch. They've been hanging out in the Market District stirring up trouble recently. They're been linked to the triads, you know."

"The _triads_?" said the woman. Her voice was genuinely surprised. "What would they want with someone like me?"

"Why do any criminals commit crime?" asked Root rhetorically. "Well, you won't need to worry about this bunch any more. If you'll just come down to the station and give a statement, we'll have them shipped off to Howler's Peak faster than a stink-worm — " given his company, he reconsidered his language " — well, very fast."

She ignored his near-gaffe. "A ... statement?"

"Just the usual sort of thing. Where you were, what happened, and so on."

"Is this entirely necessary?" she said. "Wasn't this all caught on tape?"

"Well, yes," said Root. "There are surveillance cameras — I was on duty monitoring them when I saw what was going on. I've called my patrol partner, too, and he should be here soon. But it would be very helpful if you could give us a statement just so there's no doubt about the whole business."

"Oh," said the woman. Some of her hair had somehow come loose from its braid; she was twirling it around her finger as she leaned in closer. "Well, it's just that I was supposed to meet my brother, and I'll _never_ hear the end of it if I'm late, especially if he finds out what happened here."

"It won't take very long, miss," said Root, stepping forward. She must have been wearing perfume, he thought; it smelled like coffee and something he couldn't quite identify —

"What's going on here then, eh?" said Newt, who had finally arrived from his patrol. Where had he _been_? The whole Market District was hardly that large. Had he been watching the crunchball match at a bar again? Root eyed the grease stains on Newt's uniform vest suspiciously. Had they been there at the start of their shift?

"This van broke down in the street," said Root. "The goblins decided to attack this lady here, who managed to fend them off using their fire extinguisher. I was just finishing up with some preliminary questions."

Newt cast a very dubious eye over the entire scene, and sighed. "We've already made quota for this shift, Root," he grunted. "Do you know just how long it takes to process the paperwork for these hooligans?"

But he started pulling out the vacuum handcuffs from his patrol bag anyway. Vacuum cuffs were the only way to properly secure goblins and prevent oxygen from getting to their hands, which would allow them to summon fireballs. They were useful with the other fairy races, too, since the vacuum seal also prevented any other funny business a perp might try to get up to. Root frowned as he realized that all of the cuffs from Newt's patrol kit were still there. If he really had been out patrolling, instead of sitting it out somewhere, some should have already been used.

The woman had a good arm on her. Root had seen worse in his close-combat class at the Academy. She hadn't knocked the goblins all unconscious, but they were still all laid out, disoriented and groggy, on the ground. She had disappeared around the back of the van with the fire extinguisher. He didn't blame her; he would have liked to get away from the goblins too. He held his breath and proceeded with frisking and cuffing the goblins, using his buzz baton as necessary when the goblins showed signs of resisting.

She reappeared a few minutes later, minus the fire extinguisher and now carrying two cloth sacks, which she presented prettily to Newt and Root. Newt took one and tucked it into his patrol kit without looking inside; Root accepted the other, somewhat confused. He hefted it experimentally.

"Er... what is this?"

The sack was about the size of his head, and full of small, fragrant lumps that smelled strongly of coffee. A quick look inside the bag confirmed it. Root knew that coffee was brewed from beans, but he had never actually seen the stuff in person. Or at least that was what he assumed it was: he'd be damned if the stuff served at the LEP canteen had actually been brewed from real coffee and not refined from some chemical sludge. "Are these _coffee beans?_ "

The woman raised an eyebrow. "A token of my appreciation for your service, gentlemen."

"That's not necessary–" began Root. He staggered as Newt slapped him on the back heartily.

"Never mind him," said Newt. "Much obliged, miss. Our compliments."

"Right," she said briskly. "Well, if you two have the situation in hand, I'll be on my way."

"Have a good day," said Newt amiably. This was so out of character for Newt (he had _never_ spoken to Root in that amiable of a tone) that Root turned to stare at him. Just what had he been doing while "on patrol?" As a result, he almost missed the woman getting into the van. He caught a glimpse of more sacks of the type that he and Newt had been given through the open door; then it closed, and the motor started after a few ominous coughs.

"But her statement," said Root faintly. He could only watch in disbelief as the woman backed the van up the street and turned off at the intersection, disappearing into the rest of traffic. Why hadn't he bothered taking down the van's registration? Why hadn't he gotten her _name?_

"Well, that turned out well," said Newt, in satisfied tones. He patted his patrol kit, with the sack of coffee inside it. "I should get back to patrol" — he wanted to get back to his crunchball match, more likely — "so I'll let you finish up here."

"Shouldn't you go after that woman?" burst out Root. "She just stole the van!"

No doubt the vehicle and its cargo would be better off with her than with the goblins, but he could only imagine what the paperwork for this mess would look like. A victim of attempted assault driving off with her assailants' van was still theft, even if the assailants-turned-victims were goblins. Had he been dealing with some kind of… of _criminal_ this whole time?

Newt looked at him very pityingly. "That wasn't the goblins' van, Corporal Root."


End file.
